Your 2026 Garden

[fuzzi]

Here is my Seed Savers haul from late September. The Zapallito squash is from Baker Creek. It tastes similar to zucchini, but is highly tolerant to SVB.

 

[Debbie292d]

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Here is my Seed Savers haul from late September. The Zapallito squash is from Baker Creek. It tastes similar to zucchini, but is highly tolerant to SVB.

Interesting squash! We will probably get some acorn squash seeds yet as we do need a few more things. Our farmer neighbor buys from them. She's into heritage and natives. I'm a little into natives so I just ask her.

That's a lot of carrots though. Do you freeze or can them?

We can nothing, but every year we freeze corn and tomatoes.

 

[CatInTheHenHouse]

We've raised pole beans and just pick the beans off the vines. Why would you have to drag them into the house? Maybe yours are different than ours? We have 8' tower sections that they climb on, and we wait until fall when they're dead and easy to pull off to clean them up for the next year.

For context, I’m a container gardener. All my beans were in rolling boxes and had been using my deck railing as a trellis. The deck was getting power washed and everything had to be moved off of it.

I have since made dedicated trellises and started paying more attention to the HOA maintenance schedule.

Pray tell, will that coffee plant really produce coffee beans? That'd be so cool!

Bearing in mind that coffee is:

1. A tree, which doesn’t start producing for several years
2. Which normally lives in the tropics, where I am not
3. And is apparently very finicky
4. And I’ve never tried growing it before

…then hypothetically yes. It should grow coffee cherries, which contain the bean.

Realistically it probably isn’t going to make it to that point, but for less than $2 a packet I figured it would be fun to try!

I bought seeds in the fall, when they went on sale.

Same! MIGardener had a nice sale around Thanksgiving.

 

[fuzzi]

Interesting squash! We will probably get some acorn squash seeds yet as we do need a few more things. Our farmer neighbor buys from them. She's into heritage and natives. I'm a little into natives so I just ask her.

That's a lot of carrots though. Do you freeze or can them?

We can nothing, but every year we freeze corn and tomatoes.

I mainly eat the carrots I plant, but I also don't plant enough to overwhelm my freezers with abundance. Same with turnips, beans. I freeze a lot of squash because I love it, even if it's a little rubbery when reheated.

I'm hoping to get more squash from the crookneck and spaghetti varieties. The SVB are horrible here, nothing seems to work against them long enough for me to get some harvest. It's frustrating.

I planted blueberry bushes last Spring, but stripped off all the blossoms to allow the bushes to put more energy into root and branch growth. Looking forward to a modest harvest in 2026. My elderberry bushes were also planted in 2025, from year old saplings. They might try to produce, but I will probably remove the blossoms one more year.

 

[jxp]

An experiment for me this year will be blue Hubbard squash (my all time favorite winter squash ). You cannot buy it down here in Okieland for love nor money.

When I was up in the beautiful Finger Lakes region of NYS for the month of November, Brother bought one along with a butternut and two acorns. We ate them side-by-side and WOW! What a difference.

With his back healing more and more every day, he should be able to do a bit of gardening this year and asked me to put some seeds aside for him. I brought a dozen seeds back down to flat dry and we'll see how it goes.

 

[tripletfeb]

I started Tiny Tim tomatoes, paprika, bell, and jalapeno peppers inside weeks ago. The jalapenos never came up, the seeds were old. Everything else came up but only the tomatoes are looking good. I started them just to see if they would grow good for me all winter. Results are mixed so far

 

[hollandhens24]

I just got into gardening in 2024, had a neglected garden in 2025 (my sugar pie pumpkins basically took over EVERYTHING and I was too pregnant to care to do anything about it), and I’m excited to see what 2026 has in store!

I am going to start tomatoes and peppers inside next month. I have been a huge fan of MI Gardener’s seeds as I’ve had great germination and they were super affordable as a beginner gardener! I will plant Vintage Wine (beefsteak), Tropical Sunset (cherry), and striped Roma. I will plant jalapeño and red bell peppers as well, though in the past I’ve never even gotten a sprout. I think I may need a heat mat for peppers.

Our favorite garden grows are royal burgundy beans (bush) and crimson sweet watermelon, which I’ll direct sow. I’ll also direct sow Sugar Snap peas, Chioggia beets, Imperator carrots, Waltham butternut squash, and my sweet little wildflower patch! No sugar pie pumpkins for me this year

 

[tripletfeb]

I just got into gardening in 2024, had a neglected garden in 2025 (my sugar pie pumpkins basically took over EVERYTHING and I was too pregnant to care to do anything about it), and I’m excited to see what 2026 has in store!

I am going to start tomatoes and peppers inside next month. I have been a huge fan of MI Gardener’s seeds as I’ve had great germination and they were super affordable as a beginner gardener! I will plant Vintage Wine (beefsteak), Tropical Sunset (cherry), and striped Roma. I will plant jalapeño and red bell peppers as well, though in the past I’ve never even gotten a sprout. I think I may need a heat mat for peppers.

Our favorite garden grows are royal burgundy beans (bush) and crimson sweet watermelon, which I’ll direct sow. I’ll also direct sow Sugar Snap peas, Chioggia beets, Imperator carrots, Waltham butternut squash, and my sweet little wildflower patch! No sugar pie pumpkins for me this year

Yes, peppers need a heat mat to germinate. Amazon has pretty cheap ones

 

[jxp]

I just got into gardening in 2024, had a neglected garden in 2025 (my sugar pie pumpkins basically took over EVERYTHING and I was too pregnant to care to do anything about it), and I’m excited to see what 2026 has in store!

I am going to start tomatoes and peppers inside next month. I have been a huge fan of MI Gardener’s seeds as I’ve had great germination and they were super affordable as a beginner gardener! I will plant Vintage Wine (beefsteak), Tropical Sunset (cherry), and striped Roma. I will plant jalapeño and red bell peppers as well, though in the past I’ve never even gotten a sprout. I think I may need a heat mat for peppers.

Our favorite garden grows are royal burgundy beans (bush) and crimson sweet watermelon, which I’ll direct sow. I’ll also direct sow Sugar Snap peas, Chioggia beets, Imperator carrots, Waltham butternut squash, and my sweet little wildflower patch! No sugar pie pumpkins for me this year

So you grew a different kind of sugar pie sweetie last year, eh?

 

[rosemarythyme]

I've ordered some of my seeds but still need a few others which hopefully I can get locally (mainly I need Amarillo carrots because they grow so well for me). Not trying a lot of different stuff anymore, but my experiments for the year will be parsnips and mini melons.

I'll need to start peppers in a week or two. I don't start tomatoes until mid Feb as they get too tall by the time May rolls around.